20 Reasons You Need A Website For Your Business: Social Media Presence Is NOT Enough
(Second in a series on why small businesses should not rely on social media platforms, like LinkedIn and Facebook.
The first in the series is available at 20 Reasons You Need A Website For Your Business: Social Media Presence Is NOT Enough (Part 1)
#8 Your Profile/About Page
On social media your profile is the main way people find out about you and your business. There are two major problems.
First, you have to conform to the format set up by the particular platform.
Second, by and large all Profile pages on a particular platform look pretty much the same, so it’s hard to stand out, and create a unique brand.
If you have your own website, you have complete flexibility to put whatever you want, where you want. You can segment into various pages, like services, experience, testimonials, focusing on a different sub-topic on different pages. Or not.
Add pictures, embed videos the way you want them.
And, of course you can make it look exactly the way you want in terms of layouts. Want several columns instead one a one column page? Again, not a problem. You can add elements to introduce motion, like sliders to display products, or staff.
You aren’t limited to information about YOU. You can feature your staff, too.
All this contributes to creating a brand that reflects YOUR business, so you can stand out.
#9 Categorizing Your Content
If you write articles or provide other kinds of content, this is a huge advantage for websites.
When people search for information, they are looking for specific topics, but social media platforms are not oriented towards content, but towards the PERSON.
They display your content, usually in chronological order and there’s no way to have that content display in categories by topic. So while a visitor can browse all the content, they can’t see just the content on a specific topic.
On a website, you can arrange your content any way you like. If you have a plumbing site, you can have a page for buying faucets, and a page for bathtubs.
Not only does that make it easier for people to find exactly what they need by topic, but it makes it easier for search engines to “know” what each page is about.
These days, content marketing is an essential way to create credibility in your field, and well arranged, categorized articles/content is huge in making that happen.
#10 Branding Look and Feel
In the old days, it was important to present oneself consistently in all marketing material, business cards, common logo, stationary and so on.
It’s no different these days. You want the look and feel to be consistent with the image you want to present visually and textually.
Social media platforms brand themselves. All the pages look the same, because they brand their own company site to be consistent. That means that every account pretty much looks the same. The musician, the artist, the accountant, the HR person, the politican are all limited to the format and visual interface provided by the platform.
On your own website, YOU decide on layout, logo placement, use of visuals — well, everything.
You decide on the navigation interface too.
#11 Features and Scripts
Scripts (essentially mini programs) are available on free or paid basis to add various features that can make your website unique.
For example, I decided to create some fun, interactive crossword puzzles related to the topics on some of my sites. (click here to see the puzzle on performance management in a new window)
There’s tons of stuff available to add all kinds of features to you site that will make it unique.
Social media platforms do not let you use scripts at all, and again, any available features are dictated by the platform.
#12 Controlling Interactions On Your Content
The main feature on social media platforms is the ability for readers/visitors to comment on your content, and to interact with each other. That is really the core of social media.
However, you have very little control over what gets posted, who gets to post, and the material that is displayed as part of the content. Different platforms provide differing levels of control through privacy setting, but generally they fall way short of the ideal.
Your website can incorporate comments and interactions, through the use of (usually) free commenting systems that you can add in, blog type software (wordpress), or bulletin board software.
You have total control. You can remove content that is objectionable, or ban people who misuse the comment function. You can designate some topics as private, available only to approved members, you can have others as read only (no comments). You can password protect some of your content and interaction areas.
#13 Revenue Streams – Selling Ads
While having ads for third parties may not fit for your kind of business, when you own your own website(s), you can sell ads directly to other companies, you can display “Google Ads” via Adsense. You can join an affiliate program (I.e. Amazon) and receive commissions for sales of books from customers you refer).
Of course, you need decent traffic to make significant money, and you need to ensure that ads do not interfere with the visitor experience, but you can earn supplementary income.
You can monetize your content is ways you cannot on social media platforms, PLUS you have control over what is shown with your content.
Rather than providing free content to Facebook, or LinkedIn that they put ads on (and get paid for) YOU get the money and control.
#14 E-Commerce – Selling Products
The ability to sell products and be in control of the selling/paying process differs from social media platform to platform. On LinkedIn you can’t do it. Facebook has a degree of integration for ecommerce activities.
If you have your own website, you can integrate shopping cart, payment system – the whole ecommerce shebang, and it’s under your control.
It’s not simple, but it’s gotten simpler as things have grown.
Not only can you have a specific area to catalog your products but you can have options to purchase products on your content pages too via an “Add to cart button”.
Doing e-commerce from your own website is a little more complex than other website functions, so it may not be for you. If not there are other options to sell on that you can integrate into a website, using Ebay, Etsy, Amazon, etc, that make it simpler and rely on the infrastructures of these expert ecommerce companies.
#15 Ease of Access/Visibility
On LinkedIn, the business networking site, people cannot read your articles, comments, or even your full profile, unless they are LinkedIn members and they are logged in. Other platforms differ in terms of what non-members can see, and in some cases, you can use privacy settings to restrict what can be seen to friends, people in your circles, etc.
In all those cases, you are at the mercy of how the platform is set up. For example, LinkedIN wants to increase its member totals, so it restricts access.
Not only can people have problems viewing your content, but the can have problems getting in touch with you – making a private inquiry, unless you have already followed, connected to befriend them.
It’s a real restriction on generating new potential customers. If they can read your content, you can use it to increase their awareness of your expertise.
If they can’t contact you unless you are “connected”, once again, that’s a huge barrier for new business.
Having a website solves all that, because the common communication denominator is email. Everyone has it. Everyone knows how to use it. In fact, you can have your own contact form on your site to handle inquiries.
There’s no restrictions on who views your content either, unless you choose to do the restricting.
Summary
Well, we’re up to fifteen reasons. The suspense is killing me. WIll there really be twenty five reasons to have a dedicated website?
What about the downsides? Stay tuned, because later in the series we’ll look at that, and also how to combine social media and your own website so they work together.
